SWOOSH!
“Hahahahahaha!”
“David!!!! Did you see that???”
That was the reaction in my house when Mike Miles, Jr. made a half-court buzzer beater against Gonzaga for TCU in the second round of the NCAA tournament in March of 2023. I started hysterically laughing and my dad ran down the stairs to the basement to talk to me about it. Seems like a pretty normal reaction to a game-winning buzzer beater, right? Except for the fact that it was not a game-winning buzzer beater. Mike Miles, Jr. made the shot when his team was down six, they lost the game by three.
My dad and I’s pure reaction to that shot was because it covered the spread for TCU, which was 4.5. The spread is the number of points that a team either has to win by or can lose by less than that number. TCU’s spread was +4.5, meaning that they could lose by four or less, but could not lose by five or more. When Miles, Jr. made the buzzer beater, his team lost by three instead of six, winning the +4.5 bet for TCU spread bettors. Neither my dad or I had money on the game, we were just aware of the line and could not believe how many people must have lost or won money because of a meaningless shot.
SportsGrid live show for day 1 of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. The show featured Ben Stevens and James Young at Versa NYC, a rooftop restaurant located inside the Renaissance New York Midtown Hotel. During the online broadcast, Stevens and Young spoke about their bets and reacted live to the games that were going on at the time. (Photos by David Patalano)
Sports gambling is not only something that I am knowledgeable about, but I have been around it my entire life. I remember going on my uncle’s home computer when I was eight or nine and seeing the homepage for Greeks Sportsbook, which is now a defunct offshore sportsbook. I tried logging in because I thought it was some type of secret website that would let me play unlimited sports games like Madden and NBA Live.
When I was a freshman at my Catholic high school, making a March Madness bracket was forbidden because it was considered "gambling.” This was something that flew completely over my head and I started a pool with my friends anyways. My pool was only five dollars an entry and I started it small with ten guys, but word spread fast. Suddenly I was walking the halls with a wad of cash from over fifty people because everyone wanted in on March Madness. I got lucky because somehow no teachers caught wind of my pool even though it was the talk of ninth grade. I skated by for the next three years, never running a bracket pool again.
My dad and I after my high school graduation. (Photo from David Patalano)
On holidays my family gathers in the living room and everyone throws around their best bets for the night. We discuss for a bit and then decide to all bet the same games so we can root with each other. I know this is not exactly a normal thing for families to do together, but it is something that is fun for us and if we win, it makes the night even better.
As I got older and the more I bet on sports with my family, I realized that my dad and uncles had been betting on sports for basically my entire life. One of my best friends told me that he always knew my dad would bet on sports when we would watch games at my house because he would glance over my dad’s shoulder and see the betting lines up on his phone. No one in my family is a problem gambler thankfully, but they always would try to hide their habits from us growing up. I will never forget one day when I was home from college, my dad turned to me and said with a laugh, “I’m so glad I don’t have to hide this from you anymore.” Looking back on it, I figured out why at some games my dad would seem a bit grumpier than usual if the Yankees or Knicks lost a close game.
I started placing bets on sports on my own accord. I won a couple bets on South Carolina’s magical run to the Final Four in 2017 and never looked back. All throughout college I bounced around from offshore accounts winning here and losing there. A couple of times I got burned for some money and never saw what I was owed, but it was nothing crazy. I have always kept myself in check.
This advertisement for PointsBet was shown during a live Mets broadcast, promoting Pete Alonso's odds to win National League MVP. (Photo by David Patalano)
When online sports wagering was first made legal in 2018, I thought it was great. No one would have to go through an offshore book or deal with bookies who would flake out on you for hundreds, or even thousands of dollars anymore. Something that had always been hidden from me when I was kid suddenly exploded and became insanely popular. I knew betting would go up, but I never expected it to blow up the way it did. The first legal online sports bets in New York were placed on January 8, 2022 and they were advertised randomly. Most of the ads were offering bonus deposits and “risk-free bets,” trying to reel in new users. In a little over a year, you cannot get away from seeing lines or shows where people are giving out picks. While some of these shows are entertaining and the hosts seem insightful, a handful of them seem to embrace the “dark side” of sports gambling and rely on over the top, hyper-masculine tropes. Outside of the media, it is almost like everywhere you look, even if you are just walking down the street in cities like Boston and Manhattan, there is some type of sportsbook advertising or promotion.
Billboards, like this one by FanDuel Sportsbook in East Rutherford, NJ pop up all over states with legal sports gambling, promoting retail and online sportsbooks. (Photo by David Patalano)
As someone who has been watching sports on TV since I could understand what was going on the television, it’s fascinating to me how often I see sports betting lines on live broadcasts or see sports betting programming on cable. A few years ago if you wanted to throw on ESPN to catch up on highlights or scores that is what the programming would be. But now if you throw on ESPN wanting to see highlights, that’s not what you will see. You will get a group of on-air talent that no one has ever heard of, giving out their “best bets” of the day.
“ESPN's going through a transition phase, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did more betting,” said Mike Mazzeo from Legal Sports Report. “Sports radio had been talking about [betting] for a while. Ohio’s talking about it, now Massachusetts is talking about it. I think there will certainly be more programming devoted to that, whether it's just a few segments, or entire shows about it.”
It seems like popular sports broadcasting companies like ESPN, Fox Sports, MSG, SNY, and more are going to continue to pump out sports gambling content as long as they are allowed to.
“The evidence points to how it is especially impactful on children, young people, and those already are at risk from their current gambling activity," said Darien Harbeck, a senior legislative assistant for Rep. Paul Tonko."It's bringing in this whole new generation of gamblers, through ease of access. Sports betting is being seen by really young kids to college age students who are still underage in terms of their ability to gamble.”